


that's all there is to it

by excelsors



Series: the second secret [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, au where adam has a cellphone, gansey is only in this as a voice on the phone that we don't hear so, i don't even know what this is, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:58:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excelsors/pseuds/excelsors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He considers punching the nearest brick wall, but the nearest brick wall happens to be part of St. Agnes and that might be considered sacrilegious. Also, he can’t go upstairs with bloody knuckles or Adam will spend 20 minutes questioning him and another 20 lecturing him.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>(or Ronan has a bad day and just wants to see Adam.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	that's all there is to it

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this v quickly for a lil prompt thing on tumblr but i decided to post it here
> 
> prompt: things you said that i wasn't meant to hear
> 
> come visit me on tumblr at [excelsors](http://www.excelsors.tumblr.com)

Ronan slams the door of his BMW hard enough that the whole thing rocks back and forth for a few moments. He tracks the movement with his eyes until it stills, feeling some of his frustration disappear. Physical violence usually does that for him. He considers punching the nearest brick wall, but the nearest brick wall happens to be part of St. Agnes and that might be considered sacrilegious. Also, he can’t go upstairs with bloody knuckles or Adam will spend 20 minutes questioning him and another 20 lecturing him. So instead, he leans his forehead against the cool metal of the car and tries to take deep breaths.

He doesn’t even remember what it was that set him off initially, but he remembers leaving Monmouth in a bad mood that morning. Everything after that had just made it worse. He’d blown a tire swerving into the curb after some asshole decided that his car just didn’t exist. He’d gotten three calls from Declan, all accompanied with an angry voicemail that Ronan left to rot in his inbox. He’d been forced to go to three different groceries stores to find all the shit on Gansey’s ridiculous grocery list.

But most of all, he hasn’t seen Adam all day.

He was supposed to meet Ronan for lunch at Nino’s but had called from the shop at the last minute to say he wasn’t going to be able to make it. Too busy working himself to death as usual. Adam’s stubbornness when it came to “making his own way” had been annoying before, but now it’s maddening. They’ve been together for almost 2 months now and Ronan still can’t take him out to dinner without Adam insisting he pay his half. It’s the thing they fight about the most, and Ronan is sure that if he doesn’t calm himself down before he goes upstairs, he’ll be walking right into one.

He can feel the tension radiating through his body like heat from his fingertips curled into fists by his side to the aching muscles in his shoulders to the tight clench of his jaw. He takes a deep breath and releases his fingers one by one. He rolls his shoulders back. He tries to relax his jaw, but it’s not budging.

Adam hates it when he clenches his jaw. He tells Ronan that he’s going to give himself a headache or grind his back molars to dust. Ronan tells him that he can’t help, it just happens. Adam tells him to shut up and kisses the place where his jaw and neck meet until Ronan has lost the ability to breathe, let alone clench his jaw. He’s a smart one, Ronan must admit.

As Ronan pulls himself from the memory of Adam’s mouth pressed somewhere on his skin, he finds his jaw hanging loose and the anger in him diminishing quickly. It practically vanishes when Ronan remembers that if he would just go upstairs, the memory of Adam’s mouth on his skin wouldn’t be a memory anymore.

He takes the steps two at a time.

Reaching the top of the staircase quickly, he stops short when he hears Adam’s voice. He turns into the hallway, but it’s empty, which means Adam must be in his apartment. This surprises Ronan because while the walls are thin, they’re not that thin. Adam must be close to shouting.

He walks towards the door to find that he can every word from the other side of the door.

“Yes, Gansey, I know,” Adam growls in that condescending voice Ronan loves so much.

When Ronan doesn’t hear Gansey’s voice through the door as well, he realizes that Adam must be on the phone.

“Yes, Gansey, I know,” he repeats, more violently this time. Ronan smiles proudly.

After a pause, Adam huffs out a breath, his voice shockingly loud when he speaks again.

“Yes, I know! I know I have to tell him, he’s _my_ boyfriend!”

Ronan’s stomach turns in immediate and overwhelming fear.

They’re talking about him. Adam and Gansey are talking about him and Adam is not happy. Adam has to “tell him something”.

His mind immediately jumps to the worst conclusion, and the only reason he doesn’t vomit right then and there is because Adam is speaking again and he needs to hear.

“God, why did I even tell you? I knew this would happen. I was just going to sit him down and tell him gently in a few days, a few weeks maybe, but _no_ , you’re telling me I have to tell him now.”

Ronan hears the door creak as Adam presumably leans up against it, finally sighing after a long stretch of silence on his part.

“No, you’re right. It needs to be now. He needs this now,” Adam says.

If they’re talking about what Ronan suspects, Adam is wrong. Ronan needs this like he needs to get hit by an 18-wheeler.

“I feel like every time I see him, I have to spend an hour unwinding him until he’s back to normal. It’s exhausting.”

Guilt twinges at the pit of Ronan’s stomach. He knows exactly what Adam’s talking about. It’s been almost two months, but no matter how many days go by, he still doesn’t believe it’s real. This results in Ronan frequently showing up to Adam’s apartment weighed down by anxiety that this is all just a dream, that this is the day Adam is finally going tell him he didn’t mean it, he doesn’t want it. After a while and some much needed attention from Adam, he’d always be sucked back into the reality of them and the anxiety would melt away. But he knew it was hard work. He is hard work.

For once, he’d walked up the stairs ready to see Adam, sure that Adam’s arms, Adam’s smile, Adam’s voice would be waiting. He’s fucking cursed.

He falls back onto the wall behind him, not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to stand.

Adam sighs again.

“So how do I tell him?”

 _Don’t_ , Ronan thinks. _Let me keep pretending for a little while._

In the silence of Gansey presumably explaining Adam how to break it to Ronan, how to be tactful and cognizant of Ronan’s emotions, Ronan sinks to the floor.

“A _card?_ Are you fucking kidding me?” Adam says, his voice raising again as Ronan lays his head in his hands.

A card. That sounds like Gansey. Be as formal and polite as you can and all your problems will take care of themselves.

“I don’t know why I asked for your help, especially after you tell me to say something this important with a _card!_ ” he says, shouting the last word.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “I’m just scared.”

His voice is quiet and so genuinely afraid that Ronan feels guilty again. He doesn’t want to put Adam through any of this. He wants to get up and leave, get in his car and drive as far away as he can, avoid this at all costs but he knows he can’t. He’s got to face it and he’s got to do it now.

Ronan has gathered himself up off the floor and has raised his hand to knock on Adam’s door when Adam asks, “What if he like, punches me in the face?”

Everything in Ronan’s body stops.

“I’m serious, Gansey! What if he’s so surprised that he punches me in the face? You know he doesn’t always do well with this kind of stuff!”

The rage boils up fast and hot. It’s like a shock to the heart how quickly the anger and shame take hold in Ronan.

Adam thinks Ronan is going to hurt him. Adam thinks Ronan is his dad.

“How would you know? Have you ever tried to have a conversation like this with Ronan?”

As soon as Ronan’s name falls off of Adam’s tongue, his hand finds the door knob and he turns, hard. The door swings open to reveal Adam Parrish staring back at him in, eyes wide and skin drained of all color. He doesn’t even say goodbye to Gansey, he just hangs up the phone and drops his hand to his side.

“How long have you been out there?”

Ronan ignores the question completely.

“Do you even know me at all?” he asks, keeping his voice low. If he yells now, he’ll be playing into Adam’s nightmare that he’d picked a boy just like his dad.

Adam is not wrong about many things, but he’s wrong about this. Ronan is not Adam’s dad and that’s the only reason Ronan is still even in the building. He’s going to tell Adam that he’s an idiot, that he obviously knows nothing about him, say goodbye and never come back.

“What?” Adam asks, his forehead crinkling between his eyebrows.

“Do you really think that little of me, Adam?” 

“What are you talking about?” Adam asks, taking a step towards him. He takes a step back.

“I’m talking about the fact that you think that I would physically assault you for breaking up with me!”

He knows that he shouldn’t yell, but the rage is closing in on him, the heartbreak is clawing its way up his throat. He can’t help it.

“Break up with you?” Adam starts, his face contorting under the harsh lights of his apartment. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb, Adam. Please don’t,” he says, “I’ve been standing out there for a good five minutes!”

Adam is silent for a few moments before something changes and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. He opens his mouth but Ronan doesn’t want to hear any of his excuses. He just keeps talking.

“I literally can’t believe that you would think that. God, Parrish, who do you think I am?”

“Ronan-”

“After everything you’ve been through, after I beat the living shit out of your dad for daring to lay a hand on you while I was anywhere near him, you really think that of me?”

“Ronan, calm down!”

“I’m not going to fucking calm down! I can’t _believe_ this shit.”

“Ronan!” Adam yells, raising his voice to match Ronan’s.

“What?” he roars back, “What do you have to say? Are you going to tell me that this was some fucked up Oedipal thing, that I’m just like-”

“ _Ronan_!” Adam shouts at the top of his lungs. It’s the loudest Ronan has ever heard him and it catches him off guard enough to shut him up for a few seconds.

Adam breathes heavily into the silence. Then: “I love you.”

Ronan almost punches him in the face.

“You what?” he chokes out.

“I love you,” Adam says, his voice breaking into a laugh. He throws his hands in the air and says it again. “I love you.”

When Ronan says nothing, does nothing, doesn’t breathe, Adam continues on.

“I wanted to tell you, I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now but I kept chickening out. I almost said it so many times, it’s ridiculous,” he says. “Then I woke up this morning and something was different. I knew. I knew that if I saw your face that I would tell you, it was just going to come right out of my mouth.”

Ronan’s heart has absolutely stopped beating.

“That’s why I ditched lunch. I wasn’t sure if it was the right time or the right place to tell you and I didn’t want to risk it, so I just ditched and called Gansey for advice instead, which was not a good idea, as you might have heard,” he says, his voice trailing off and his hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. “Jesus, anyways, that’s it. I think. That’s all there is to it. I love you.”

He takes it back, his heart hasn’t stopped beating, it’s disappeared from his body altogether. 

His heart is somewhere in Adam Parrish’s hands. 

_Where it belongs_ , he thinks. _Where it’s always been._


End file.
